Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 41:3
The LORD will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness.
3. The Lord will support him upon the couch of languishing (R.V.), uphold him (Psa 18:35) and preserve him from sinking into the grave.
thou wilt make all his bed ] Lit. thou hast turned (or, changed) his lying down: changed his sickness into health. Cp. Psa 30:11. Instead of a general truth a particular example is appealed to: or perhaps faith pictures the result as already attained. ‘The Lord will support nay, thou hast already raised him up.’
The verse is commonly explained as a metaphor from the nurse supporting the patient’s head and shifting the bed and pillows to give ease and relief, but usage does not seem to warrant this interpretation.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing – The word rendered strengthen here means to support; to uphold; to sustain. The idea here is, that God would enable him to bear his sickness, or would impart strength – inward strength – when his body failed, or when but for this aid he must sink under his disease and die. The word rendered languishing means properly languor or sickness; and more generally something sickening; that is, something unclean, unwholesome, nauseating, Job 6:6. The idea here, in accordance with what is stated above, is, that acts of religion will tend to promote our welfare and hap piness in this life; and more particularly that the man who shows favor Psa 41:1 to those who are weak, sick, helpless, will find in turn that God will support him when he is sick. Thus, Psa 18:25, With the merciful thou wilt show thyself merciful.
Thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness – Margin, as in Hebrew: turn. So the Septuagint, estrepsas. Luther renders it, Thou dost help him. The idea is, that God will turn his bed or his couch; that is, that he will render favor like turning his couch, or making his bed when he is sick; or, in other words, he will relieve his suffering, and make him comfortable on his bed. It does not mean that he will turn his sickness to health, but that he will relieve and comfort him, as one is relieved and soothed on a sick bed by having his bed made up. This, too, is in accordance with the general sentiment that God will show himself merciful to those who are merciful; kind to those who are kind. On the bed of languishing it will be much to be able to remember that we, in our health, have contributed to the comfort of the sick and the dying.
(a) The recollection itself will do much to impart inward satisfaction then, for we shall then appreciate better than we did when we performed the act the value of this trait of character, and have a deeper sense of gratitude that we have been able to relieve the sufferings of others;
(b) we may believe and trust that God will remember what we have done, and that he will manifest himself to us then as our gracious supporter and our comforter.
It will not be because by our own acts we have merited his favor, but because this is his gracious purpose, and because it is in accordance with his nature thus to bestow kindness on those who have been kind to others.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 41:3
The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: Thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness.
Sickness
No one who has not felt the pains of sickness can fully appreciate the blessing of health. The lassitude and sufferings of sickness are hard to bear; and yet it is a wholesome discipline, which all of us greatly need. The design of sickness may be threefold. Sometimes it is sent to punish the wicked (1Sa 5:6). Or to try the patience and constancy of the righteous. Or to show forth Gods glory (Joh 9:3; Joh 11:4).
I. Our duty toward the sick, who may need assistance, Those who are well off in life, can have things arranged to suit themselves. The large and well-ventilated room, the comfortable bed with its clean and wholesome linen, the varied delicacies to suit the morbid appetite, the gentle and unwearied attentions of kindred and friends–all this, and more, money may readily command. But there are many who can have no such alleviation to their suffering. The kind physician comes–may God reward at the last day the many visits of mercy which he makes to the afflicted poor. But he leaves directions that the sick man should be kept quiet. Quiet indeed! He may as well command the mill dam to stop its ceaseless roar, or the hard hailstones not to rattle upon the roof. The minister of God arrives he asks of the welfare of the sick. He prays for his recovery. His petition in such a case is nothing more nor less than asking God to work a miracle in the sufferers behalf, because he must be left in a condition much more likely to make a well man sick, than a sick man well.
II. Think seriously of the time when all will be called to lie down upon the bed of languishing. There will be some morning of your lives, when business will be going on in the shops, and on the streets, but you will be far otherwise engaged. And suppose you that the bed of sickness is a convenient or suitable place to arrange your long-neglected account with God? (A. M. Sadleir.)
The sick man healed
The precise meaning of this verse is questioned, some regarding both clauses as descriptive of tender nursing, which sustains the drooping head and smooths the crumpled bedding, while others, noting that the word rendered bed in the second clause means properly lying down, take that clause as descriptive of turning sickness into convalescence. The latter meaning gives it a more appropriate ending to the strophe, as it leaves the sick man healed, not tossing on a disordered bed, as the other explanation does. Jehovah does not half cure. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 3. The Lord will strengthen him] Good, benevolent, and merciful as he is, he must also die: but he shall not die as other men; he shall have peculiar consolations, refreshment, and support, while passing through the valley of the shadow of death.
Thou wilt make all his bed] haphachta, thou hast turned up, tossed, and shaken it; and thou wilt do so to all his bed – thou wilt not leave one uneasy place in it-not one lump, or any unevenness, to prevent him from sleeping. Thou wilt do every thing, consistently with the accomplishment of the great decree, “Unto dust thou shalt return,” to give him ease, refreshment, and rest. We may sum up the privileges of the merciful man:
1. He is generally blessed, Ps 41:1.
2. He will be delivered in the time of trouble, Ps 41:1.
3. He will be preserved by a particular providence, Ps 41:2.
4. He shall be kept alive amidst infection and danger, Ps 41:2.
5. He shall be blessed on the earth in his temporal concerns, Ps 41:2.
6. His enemies shall not be able to spoil or destroy him, Ps 41:2.
7. He shall be strengthened on a bed of languishing, to enable him to bear his afflictions, Ps 41:3.
8. He shall have ease, comfort, and support in his last hours, Ps 41:3.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Either,
1. Change or overturn his bed of sickness; which is done when a man is restored to health. Or rather,
2. Give him ease and comfort, which sick men receive by the help of those who turn and stir their whole bed, to make it soft and easy for them; for the words foregoing and following these suppose him to be and continue in a state of sickness. Thus the Lord elsewhere compares himself to a servant, waiting upon his people at table, Luk 12:37; as here, to one that makes their bed; metaphors implying strange condescension.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1-3. God rewards kindness to thepoor (Pr 19:17). From Psa 41:2;Psa 41:11 it may be inferred thatthe Psalmist describes his own conduct.
poorin person,position, and possessions.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing,…. When on a sick bed, or a death bed, where he lies languishing, and ready to expire; when his natural strength, spirits, and heart fail him, then the Lord strengthens him with strength in his soul; and is the strength of his heart, and his portion for ever. The Targum is,
“the Word of the Lord shall help him in his life, and shall appear to him on the bed of his illness, to quicken him;”
thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness; or “all his bed thou hast turned” or “wilt turn in his sickness” t; meaning not the recovery of him from a bed of sickness to a state of health, which is the sense given by many; much less a turning him from a state of ease and rest into trouble and distress; but making him easy and comfortable on a bed of sickness; which, in a literal sense, is done when a sick person’s bed is turned or made, or he is turned upon it from side to side; so the Lord, by the comforts of his Spirit, makes a sick and death bed easy to them that believe in Christ, and often puts that triumphant song into their mouths in their dying moments, “O death! where is that sting?” c. 1Co 15:55 and this is the peaceful end and blissful state of such who wisely consider Christ and believe in him; low estate, through the sins of his the insults of his enemies, and the treachery of one of his disciples, is described in the following verses.
t “versasti”, Pagninus, Montanus; “vertisti”, Vatablus; “ita vertes”, Michaelis; so Ainsworth; , Apollinarius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(3) Will strengthen.Literally, will prop him up, support him.
Wilt make.Literally, hast turned. Some think with literal allusion to the fact that the Oriental bed was merely a mat, which could be turned while the sick man was propped up. But such literalness is not necessary. To turn here is to change, as in Psa. 66:6; Psa. 105:29, and what the poet says is that, as in past times, Divine help has come to change his sickness into health, so he confidently expects it will be now, in his sickness being equivalent to in the time of his sickness.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3. Strengthen him The figure belongs to the sick bed, Thou wilt prop him up, support him, as a careful nurse would a sick person. See Son 2:6.
Make all his bed Turn, turn over, change all his bed, namely, for the greater ease and comfort of the sick one. The most delicate and tender care is here described. God’s loving presence will make a sick bed easy. As the word rendered “make,” here, properly means to turn, and the word “bed” is derived from the verb to lie down, and sometimes means recumbency, it has been supposed that the turning the sick bed, that is, the recumbency or bedridden condition, denotes convalescence. Thus Delitzsch: “He gives complete turn to the sick bed towards recovery.” But the former is the more easy and natural sense.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 41:3. Thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness Thou turnest all his bed in his sickness. This expresses the ease and refreshment which God had just before given him in his sickness; as great as a person feels from his bed being made up smooth around him. Mudge.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psa 41:3 The LORD will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness.
Ver. 3. The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing ] Whether through sickness of body, as Isa 38:2 , or sorrow of heart; for in such case also men cast themselves upon their beds, 1Ki 21:4 . This God, and not the physicians, will do for the sick man, die septimo, on the seventh day, saith R. Solomon, when he is at sickest.
Thou wilt make all his bed
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
the bed = the couch.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
strengthen: Psa 73:26, 2Ki 1:6, 2Ki 1:16, 2Ki 20:5, 2Ki 20:6, 2Co 4:16, 2Co 4:17, Phi 2:26, Phi 2:27
make: Heb. turn
Reciprocal: Gen 48:2 – strengthened Exo 15:26 – for I am Psa 6:2 – for I Psa 103:3 – healeth
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
41:3 The LORD will strengthen him upon the {b} bed of languishing: thou wilt make all his {c} bed in his sickness.
(b) When for sorrow and grief of mind he calls himself on his bed.
(c) You have restored him in his sick bed and sent him comfort.